


A Study in Laughter

by poetofstarlight



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: (minho definitely agrees with me on that), Fluff, Kinda, M/M, Pining, also like? poetic?, and just wants to hear him laugh, flowers are also involved because i just think newt and flowers is the best thing ever, minewt, minho thinks newt is really cool and really pretty, very cute and fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:07:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29101512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetofstarlight/pseuds/poetofstarlight
Summary: Minho is on a mission to make Newt laugh.Reallylaugh—a full body, clutching-his-stomach-and-can-hardly-catch-his-breath-for-the-next-ten-minutes laugh.
Relationships: Minho & Newt (Maze Runner), Minho/Newt (Maze Runner)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 45





	A Study in Laughter

**Author's Note:**

> me? writing minewt fic literally 9 years after i read the books because i've suddenly gotten back into the fandom? it's more likely than you think. i have no idea if anyone is going to read this bc the fandom is low-key dead and minewt is not nearly as popular as *other* ships but like. why newtmas when minewt.
> 
> this lil fic is dedicated to my lovely friend and minewt buddy tar!! (we rly do be sailing on the tiniest rowboat for two)

Newt has the best laugh. Well, Minho hasn’t _technically_ heard it before—not in its entirety, at least, because there definitely has to be more to it—but he knows with certainty that it has to be a good one. And this he knows for three reasons:

1\. Newt always has a smirk playing on his lips. It isn’t a haughty smirk, there isn’t anything smug about it, but it _is_ a smirk. It’s just a small quirk of his lips, at the right corner of his mouth. Through careful observation, Minho’s determined it to always be lying just below the surface, even at the most seemingly humorless times. He knows this because he can see it in Newt’s eyes which, dark as they are (like the soft earth over by the Deadheads, Minho’s decided, where little pink and white flowers grow at the bases of the outer trees), always have a lightness about them. It’s as if an ever-glowing flame resides there, so that even when Newt’s eyes are reflecting light (which they have a wonderful tendency to do, whether it’s the intense sunlight that soaks the Glade, the fire in the pit as they sit around eating Fry’s slop, or the stars above them as they lay quiet in their hammocks), there’s still this bit of light, this sort of glowing, that’s unmistakably _his._

But this is about Newt’s laugh, Minho reminds himself, so he can’t get too caught up in the thought of Newt’s eyes.

He knows from the smirk that Newt must have an amazing laugh because the smirk tells him Newt is really just the same as Minho: always searching for a punchline. Oh, Newt might hide it well enough; he might put on a facade of seriousness when it comes to his Vice Admiral duties and he might not take every opportunity, as Minho does, to bully any poor shank who has the misfortune of saying something stupid within earhost of him, but he certainly _thinks_ about it. And Minho can tell he thinks about it because of that infuriatingly endearing little smirk that pops up whenever Alby’s being, well, _Alby_ or a Greenie’s being a slinthead. What Minho would give to hear all those things Newt thinks up, all the jokes he plays over in his head that make the smirk quirk onto his lips and the special light in his eyes flash.

2\. Newt has a breathless sort of snicker. It’s the most amazing sound Minho can ever remember hearing (which, okay, isn’t saying _that_ much, given his general state of amnesia, but even still), and there’s only one sound in the world that could possibly top it—but more on that later. For now, the snicker is what’s important. It is perhaps less a snicker and more a short huff of breath, but Minho loves it because of how it sounds like _surprise._ It’s surprising to anyone who’s heard it, for one thing, but more importantly it’s surprising to Newt, as if he never quite expects it to escape him. Minho lives for those moments when he gets to see Newt snicker, because while it’s always accompanied with the smirk, which in many ways was quite a knowing smirk, Newt’s eyes gave him away with the quick flash that accompanies the escape of breath when he snickers. It’s only in those little moments when Newt, who like Alby tries for the sake of the other Gladers to appear as though he knows as much as can be known, gives himself away with that little flash that says _I don’t quite know everything, nor do I want to._

Then there is of course the way that Newt’s lips lift just slightly as he lets himself snicker, revealing his teeth for a brief moment. Minho is fascinated by those teeth—they're a bit crooked, with the left canine coming just short of the rest of Newt’s upper teeth. Minho studies those teeth whenever he can, which is not so often, because it would take a grin to really be able to see them, and Newt doesn’t grin. He smirks.

But Newt’s teeth are another topic entirely, and although Minho does sometimes find them capturing his gaze, all he really wants is to hear Newt’s laugh, because if Newt’s snicker is anything to go by, his laugh would prove that best little truth Newt holds close to his chest. The one that exposes Newt’s truest self as the one who lets a note of surprise flash across his eyes, so that for a moment he can say _Oh yes, that’s right—I really don’t know anything at all, and I rather like it that way_ to anyone who’s paying close enough attention.

3\. One time, Newt chuckled. Alright, it was more than _one_ time, but it was only one time that Newt chuckled at something Minho said, so really he’d only ever chuckled one time that mattered. And oh, when it happened, Minho knew his case was a hopeless one. It’s a boyish thing, Newt’s chuckle, a sound somewhere between water babbling in a brook and the catching of bird’s wings on the wind. The thing Minho loves most about it is how free it makes Newt seem for the brief moment it escapes his pink lips. Those lips really make Newt’s laughter an all the more irresistible goal, Minho thinks, because of how pink they are, almost like those flowers by the Deadheads, and because of how the flush of Newt’s cheeks when he’s in a carefree mood brings out their sweet color even more. If Minho were to count the number of times he had imagined the way those pink lips would look, parted in all-consuming laughter, Minho suspects the number would near that of the stars.

But this isn’t about Newt’s lips either, Minho chastises himself. It’s about his _laughter._

It’s this chuckle, more than anything, that tells Minho how Newt’s laugh will be a glorious thing. Not only for the sound of it, but for the way that Newt’s eyes crinkle at the corners, and his shoulders turn in slightly as it makes its way up his chest to his throat where, as it escapes his mouth, Minho has learned to catch the flash of Newt’s pink tongue pressed against the back of his front teeth. It’s the way that Newt ducks his head just so, and how all these things together—the crinkle of his eyes, the hunch of his shoulders, the pink tongue, the bend of his head, and of course the _sound_ of it—make Newt’s chuckle sound like a secret.

And Minho can’t help but want to hold that secret for himself. He thinks if he can get Newt to laugh for real, then maybe he can have that secret, if only for a brief moment.

All that said, Minho doesn’t have a very solid plan about how _exactly_ he’s going to get Newt to laugh. And anyway, from his careful observation, Minho has concluded that Newt comes the closest to laughter in spontaneous moments that even Minho can’t predict. So he goes about the days as usual—running the Maze most of the time, and not letting Newt out of his sight the rest of the time. If Minho just so happens to make sure Newt is within earshot whenever he’s making a joke, then so be it.

He comes _very_ close two times.

The first is a day when Newt’s showing a Greenie around. Minho tags along because he sprained his ankle the previous day, and Alby refuses to send a somewhat injured Runner into the Maze. Not that Minho’s complaining—he could use a break from the Maze, for one thing, and for another, he could really use a day of Newt.

So Newt’s showing the Greenie around, explaining things about the different jobs around the Glade, and all the while he’s smiling (well, _smirking_ , but with Newt the two actions are interchangeable), which means Minho can’t stop thinking about turning that smile into a laugh. Yet even as he’s daydreaming of it, he can’t think of anything particularly funny to say—he blames the Greenie for dampening the mood, the slinthead—so he mostly tunes out the conversation Newt and the Greenie are carrying on in favor of admiring all those things about Newt’s smile and nose and lips and eyes and _hair_ (oh god, don’t get him started on Newt’s hair) that he so loves.

Then the Greenie says something utterly stupid. And Minho’s never quite mastered the art of overlooking stupidity.

“Have you got a plan to get out of this place?” the Greenie asks somewhere between Newt’s explanation of the Slicers and the Medjacks.

“No, we thought we’d wait for your pretty shuck face to get here before we started on that,” Minho replies evenly.

It isn’t particularly funny—Minho knows for a fact that he’s said funnier things—but that’s when it happens. Newt chuckles _twice._ One right after the other, babbling brook and bird’s wings in the wind and all. Minho turns his frown from the Greenie to grin at Newt, who’s eyes widen slightly as if he’s realized he’s been caught out, and for a second Minho thinks Newt is going to chuckle a _third_ time, which would surely have to turn into a full laugh, but instead he just smirks at Minho.

“Yeah, ‘course we’ve got _plans_ ,” Newt says to the Greenie, crossing his arms. He’s still smirking at Minho, but then he turns away, and Minho would murder the Greenie on the spot if it weren’t for Rule Number 2 of the Glade.

As for the second time, Minho has to give some of the credit to Fry’s moonshine. It’s dark and dinner is finishing up—some of the Gladers are getting raucous, so Minho suspects a wrestling match is in their near-future, but he doesn’t pay it much mind because he’s sitting with Newt against a log that’s a decent distance from the fire where the rest of the Gladers are lounging in the grass.

Newt has been smirking all night, for some reason, which means Minho has been stealing glances at him all night to catch the way the flickering light from the bonfire dances over that smirk, making it even more tantalizing than usual.

They’ve discarded their bowls, and are sitting in a comfortable silence side-by-side so that their bodies touch from their shoulders to their knees to their ankles (they’ve always been precisely the same height, despite the fact that they’ve both grown since their arrival to the Glade). Newt’s staring at the Gladers by the fire who are moving about now, preparing for a wrestling match—it looks like Gally and Ben are the contenders tonight—that little smirk on his lips like he’s got some sort of marvelous comedic monologue going on in his head about the whole situation, so Minho is staring at Newt, wondering over the contents of that monologue but also just wondering over the marvel that is Newt.

Then Newt shifts beside him, and Minho has to blink and turn his gaze to the other Gladers so that Newt doesn’t catch him staring. He hears Newt rummaging with something on his other side, feels the movement of Newt’s right arm against Minho’s left, and then Newt settles beside him again, letting out a triumphant sigh that causes Minho to glance over. And _of course_ Newt’s got a jar of brownish red liquid that he’s already raising to his lips. When he sees Minho looking at him, though, he pauses with the jar raised halfway to his mouth, the smirk resting easily on his lips again.

“Can I help you, shank?” Newt asks, and that light in his eyes seems to dance with a joke only Newt and his stupidly endearing smirk can share in.

Minho recovers quickly to roll his eyes. “No,” he says, settling back against the log so he’s looking out at the Gladers again.

He can practically _hear_ Newt’s smirk as he feels the movement of Newt’s arm when he raises the jar the rest of the way to his lips.

“Want some?” Newt asks, and Minho glances down to see the jar, still in Newt’s hand, being shoved into Minho’s own.

Minho pulls a face. “It looks disgusting.”

“It looks like _amber_ ,” Newt says, and he’s right. It’s not so much the look of it that’s disgusting, but the idea of the taste. “Drink it. It’ll warm you up.”

Minho isn’t even cold, but he suddenly wishes he was so he would have a decent excuse for forcing himself to chug some of Fry’s moonshine other than _Newt told me to._

“There’s a reason you’re the only one who drinks this, you know,” Minho says, still staring at the jar in his hands.

“Other people drink it,” Newt insists. “I just happen to be Fry’s most valued customer.”

Minho snorts at this and then thinks _well, shuck it,_ before bringing the jar to his lips.

He immediately regrets it—the taste is sharper than he ever remembers it being before, and it _burns,_ so he starts to swallow quickly to be done with it, only that’s the wrong choice because now it’s burning his throat, and suddenly he finds himself coughing and spluttering, spitting what’s left of it out, his eyes watering enough that he might as well be crying.

And _that’s_ when Newt snickers and then chuckles twice, and if it weren’t for Minho and his stupid inability to down Fry’s moonshine, maybe Newt would have gone into all-out laughter. But Minho’s still spluttering over the grass, so Newt cuts his second chuckle short out of concern.

“Whoa there,” he says, snatching the jar from Minho as he very nearly spills it all over himself. He leans over and pats Minho gently on the back as Minho coughs. When Newt speaks again, Minho feels his breath against his ear. “Alright?”

Minho doesn’t think he’ll be able to form words until his eyes stop watering, which likely won’t be until the next morning, but he manages a choked, “Yeah,” and a nod.

Newt’s stopped patting Minho’s back, is sort of rubbing it now as Minho gets through the last of his spluttering and regains his breath. “Good that,” Newt says.

 _Good that._ Newt is going to be the death of him.

When it finally does happen, Minho doesn’t expect it at all. And Newt doesn’t either, which is more important, because it means that the laugh is all the more glorious to behold. It’s midafternoon and they’re in the Deadheads because Minho finished his run earlier than usual so he’s joined Newt to collect firewood, which isn’t a task Minho ever realized Newt did.

Minho’s never been in the Deadheads much, so he’s delighted to discover that the little white and pink flowers that dot the trunks of the outer trees grow further in the forest as well. When Newt’s back is turned, Minho leans down to pick some. They’re impossibly tiny, each flower no bigger than the nail on his pinkie finger and Minho thinks again of how the pink ones remind him so much of Newt’s lips, of how the bit of earth that clings to the bottoms of the stems reminds him of Newt’s eyes. He thinks the white ones could remind him of Newt’s teeth, if he really wanted to complete the image.

“Here,” Minho says when Newt turns back around, bits of wood and fallen branches in his arms. Minho reaches out and tucks the world’s smallest bouquet behind Newt’s ear, so that the pink and white petals peak out between his slightly askew tawny hair. Newt’s eyes widen, like they did that day with the Greenie when Minho grinned at him.

“What are those for?” Newt asks, the little smirk already creeping to his face.

“They remind me of you,” Minho says simply. Immediately, he feels his cheeks heat up. _Why’d you say that, you slinthead?!_

It doesn’t help Minho’s embarrassment that at that moment, of all moments, Newt starts _laughing._ Actually, fully, completely _laughing._ He’s dropped all the wood he so carefully collected and is _laughing._ But oh, it’s worth all the embarrassment in the world, because it’s the best sound, like the dam of the babbling brook has broken and the water is flowing free, while up above a whole flock of birds catch the wind in their wings, chirping happily to one another in little hiccups of surprise. Yes, Newt is laughing, and it’s the best thing Minho has ever seen. His shoulders turn in like when he chuckles, and he ducks his head slightly, eyes crinkled. His lips are parted as they do when he snickers, revealing those funny teeth, and his eyes, though hard to make out entirely given the laughter that’s taken over his face, are brighter than Minho’s ever seen them, the light inside dancing faster than flames. Newt clutches at his stomach with one hand, reaches out for Minho’s shoulder with the other to keep from falling over he’s laughing so much. Minho, of course, finds himself laughing with Newt so that the two sounds mix together, tangling up in each other the moment they enter the air.

And then Newt does something Minho _really_ doesn’t expect: he kisses him.

It’s after he’s reached out for Minho’s shoulder and Minho has joined in the laughter. Newt manages to catch his breath briefly enough to look up, straightening his posture so he and Minho stand the same height again. Minho has only a second to register all this, to worry that the laughter—the wonderful, wonderful laughter—is already over before Newt’s face is closer than Minho can ever remember it being, and Newt’s beautiful eyes are fluttering closed and— _oh._ Newt’s lips ( _so pink,_ Minho thinks as he closes his own eyes) are impossibly soft, _almost like flower petals._ Minho opens his mouth in a hopeless attempt to get closer to those lips, but instead he’s met by Newt’s wicked little tongue. It flicks into Minho’s mouth and he thinks _so this is what that smirk has been hiding._

Newt snakes his hands around the back of Minho’s neck, into his short black hair, which makes Minho realize that _he_ can touch _Newt’s_ hair, so he reaches up, losing his fingers in the soft waves of it, wondering vaguely what use his hands had before this moment. He has the urge to be closer to Newt even still, wants them to stop being two separate people and instead become one being, like how the sound of their two laughters became one when it touched the air. He drops one hand from Newt’s hair, wraps it around Newt’s waist to pull him closer—only, that makes Newt stumble and maybe they really have become one being because Minho stumbles too. Luckily, there’s a tree to stop them from toppling over. As Minho feels his back brush against it, Newt wraps his legs around him, arms around his neck as he deepens the kiss still, and Minho lets them sink to the ground, his back sliding against the rough trunk of the tree.

 _Newt._ Newt is in his lap, tilting Minho’s chin up as he leans over him to kiss him, to suck at Minho’s lips and tease him with that stupid, stupid tongue. Minho knows it’s messy—he doesn’t have much reference (or any reference, for that matter) when it comes to kissing, but he knows that everything about this one is messy—yet it’s _so good_ and he wouldn’t trade it for something neater or more polite. It’s messy and deep and strong and a little bit desperate—all things that make it feel like a kiss to come home to. Minho sighs into Newt’s mouth, and isn’t embarrassed by the sound of it one bit, because Newt sighs back.

At some point, they must come up for air. But when they do, they do not part—they are still one being, one single entity, with Newt’s legs tangled in Minho’s and his head resting against Minho’s chest. Minho’s arms are wrapped around Newt’s thin frame as they catch their breath, his chin resting atop Newt’s soft, tickling hair.

He feels Newt’s arm move and glances down to see him fiddling with the little flowers Minho put in his hair earlier. They must have fallen to the ground at some point, Minho thinks, to wait for them to find again.

Minho reaches for the flowers, but he doesn’t take them from Newt. Instead, their fingers twine together while each holding on to the flowers, as if they’ve got one hand between the two of them. 

“They’re the color of your lips,” Minho says, twirling the little stems between the thumb and forefinger of their new hand.

At that, Newt breaks into laughter again.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed this little study in laughter! what's your favorite: newt's smirk, his snicker, his chuckle, or his laugh?
> 
> also, i'm on [tumblr](https://everyminewtcounts.tumblr.com) (yes, _minewt_ tumblr), so feel free to stop by and say hello!


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